Polish Legions

Not to be confused with the Polish Legion of the Austro-Hungarian Army.

The Polish Legions were Polish exiles that fought in the army of Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. Led by men such as Jan Henryk Dabrowski and Jozef Poniatowski, the legions existed from 1797 to 1803, although some fought until 1815.

History
The dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 led to the exiles of several Polish men who had taken part in resistance against the Russian Empire, Austrian Empire, and Prussia. France formed the Polish Legions in 1797, recruiting Polish troops into the French Army. They were an elite force of troops that were used on the front lines by Emperor Napoleon. In 1802, when Napoleon sent an army to Saint-Domingue to reclaim the colony for France, he sent 6,600 Polish legionnaries as well as more German and Swiss allies to capture Haiti for them. The Poles suffered from yellow fever and other diseases, and only 330 returned home in 1803 when the campaign ended in failure. Many of them died of disease or combat and some fled to the United States and Florida.

The Polish legions were famous for their fighting in Italy, with General Jan Henryk Dabrowski entering Rome in 1797 during the French Revolutionary Wars. They were also used abroad in the Peninsular War in Spain, recruited in the city of Toulouse in Midi-Pyrenees Province. The army of Emmanuel de Grouchy consisted mainly of Polish forces due to the lack of enthusiasm for the war by mid-1813, and in late March they fought in the Battle of Auch alongside two Swiss Foot regiments.

Most of the Polish troops joined the army of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1803, but many of the Polish Legion troops remained in the service of Napoleon on his invasion of Russia in 1812, the defense of Germany in 1813, and the defense of France in 1814. When Napoleon came to power again in 1815, a few regiments fought for him until his fall in June 1815 alongside his empire.